Environmental lobby needs new message

Greenpeace members hold a banner aboard a boat near an oil rig in the Davis Strait, off Greenland's west coast in this photo provided by Greenpeace International. There is a "growing radicalized environmentalist faction" in Canada that is opposed to the country's energy sector policies, warns a newly declassified intelligence report.

PHOTO: Jiri Rezac, Greenpeace International

By David Booth, Postmedia News

Originally published: October 11, 2012

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Remember herpes? According to Time magazine (Aug. 2, 1982 edition), it was the Bubonic plague of the time, sure to run rampant over the general population and spell the end of the one night-stand. Thirty years later — post-AIDS and with teenagers wearing wristbands to advertise what kinky behaviours they’re willing to indulge in that evening — it seems very much the classic tempest in a teapot.

How about Y2K? If media reports were to be believed, computer time clocks would spontaneously immolate as 1999 ended, their discombobulated operating systems sending the whole world into a tizzy. IT wonks worked massive amounts of overtime, collected gargantuan overtime paycheques and then … nothing happened. Oh, a bunch of slot machines in Delaware stopped working and a French weather channel reported the wrong date, but, other than that, the promised digital Armageddon was yet another bust.

And now I am left wondering whether the one prognostication of doom I did buy into — namely peak oil, or the fact that diminishing oil supplies would drive gasoline prices skyward and thus force us all into electrified weenie-mobiles — is yet another case of the general public taking Chicken Little too seriously.

News out of the oil industry is that — and this may be the most shocking thing I have written in 15 years of Motor Mouthing — the United States may be energy self-sufficient by 2022. OK, I exaggerate; in fact, American oil production will be boosted by some 75% (to record levels, by the way, breaking the 1970 record), possibly weaning the U.S. off Middle Eastern imports.

Why is that so important to an automotive column? Well, south of the border, where the environmental Green Machine makes all manner of doomsday predictions, one of the favourite arguments for the adoption of electrified vehicles is “energy security.” With the emissions reduction message falling on increasingly deaf ears, the nattering nabobs of environmental negativism have been touting messages more pertinent to Americans — namely, that increasingly stringent fuel economy standards will save money at the gas pumps and reduce reliance on increasingly volatile Middle Eastern (or, as the comically politically correct reports call them, waterborne) supplies.

Well, if the proponents of shale oil fracking are believable, both problems will be eliminated, or at least stabilized without any changes in the North American automotive fleet. According to Bentek Energy’s market analysts, by 2022, the U.S. may only require oil imports from reliable neighbours such as Canada and Mexico. Other reports are even more optimistic, suggesting that future natural gas deposits and Green River shale oil production could give the U.S. energy independence for another 100 years.

So, where does this leave the burgeoning electric vehicle industry? The environment-first message is obviously not working as EV sales are not even close to meeting expectations. In the United States, Nissan has sold just 4,228 of its much-ballyhooed Leaf in the first eight months of this year, pretty much putting paid to CEO Carlos Ghosn’s projections of 1.5 million EV sales by 2016 as well as the pipedream that 10% of all vehicle sales will be pure EVs by 2020. Total EV sales in Canada last year (and we’re including the Chevrolet Volt in these figures) were 468.

And what of the Obama administration’s 54.5-miles-per-gallon (4.3 litres per 100 kilometres) mandate? Again, it’s been predicated as much on energy security and gas prices as environmental impact. The Republicans have already threatened to scrap the ground-breaking regulations. Imagine if, for once, the Tea Party actually has (some) scientific evidence for its madness.

Of course, we needn’t worry too much about our oil- producing Arab friends. With China putting as many as 18 million new (as opposed to replacement) vehicles on the road every year and other burgeoning economies bursting to duplicate traffic-jammed U.S. roadways, there will be no shortage of markets for their crude. That also means that the larger global issue — namely, that we really should be cutting back on fossil fuel usage and emitting fewer noxious fumes — is going to be more difficult to sell.

Once again, just in case there’s some misunderstanding, I will state that, despite my rampant skepticism with the current solution, we still very much need to a) reduce fossil fuel consumption and b) reduce tailpipe emissions. But the-sky-is-falling prognostications that have become the trademark of every lobby group trying to encourage social change is starting to fall on deaf ears. If it continues to rely on its current message of overly strident environmentalism, I suspect it is going to be spectacularly unsuccessful.

We indeed need to change our ways. But the environmental lobby needs new messaging.